Voicemail systems are used to store and retrieve voice messages, such as telephone voice messages. Developed initially for large corporations, voicemail technology has since expanded to small businesses and individual cellular and residential subscribers. Voicemail systems may be large centralized systems that mange a high volume of telephone messages for a business, or may be smaller systems, such as an answering machine in a home or a voice mailbox accessible by a cellular telephone subscriber.
More recently, large volume corporate voicemail has been significantly improved by the introduction of voice over IP (VoIP) technology, which implemented a standard for transmitting voice over the Internet. VoIP, technology enables centralization to shared severs and the ability to remotely manage enterprise accounts. It also enables users to access information from various devices including smart telephones, and laptop computers. The transition from legacy telephony technologies to IP (Internet Protocol) telephony has enabled greater flexibility, manageability, lower costs, reliability and speed in voicemail technology.
Voicemail has become a commonplace technology, and has recently included certain rudimentary security features, such as requiring a password to retrieve messages. Contemporary voicemail systems, however, lack certain additional security and accountability features required in secure facilities such as, e.g., government detention and treatment locations and other similar institutions. Even VoIP based systems do not provide many of the features required for secure facilities.
Voicemail has become a commonplace technology, and has recently included certain rudimentary security features, such as requiring a password to retrieve messages. Contemporary voicemail systems, however, lack certain additional security and accountability features required in secure facilities such as, e.g., government detention and treatment locations and other similar institutions. Even VoIP based systems do not provide many of the features required for secure facilities.
Voicemail is a potentially valuable service for secure facilities such a prisons and other government detention centers. Many facilities do not have sufficient staff to transcribe the phone messages, or do not allow the staff to do so for security reasons. Accordingly, written communication via the postal service is the primary means of communication between facility residents and outside friends and family. All mail must be opened, reviewed, screened for toxins, and delivered—a slow, unreliable, labor-intensive and expensive process. It is also difficult to archive and index this information for investigators. Voicemail systems can provide secure facilities with a fast and easy passage of essential information, if they could only provide the security and accountability features necessary for the environment. Thus, there exists a need for a voicemail system that provides security and accountability features suited for secure facilities such as prisons, government detention and treatment facilities.